Author's Note: Based off an RP I had going with some friends, one friend had RL eat her and gave myself and the remaining friend the go-ahead to turn the RP into a fanfic. And thus I present to you the first installment of our House of the Dragon series. It's an AU series for the simple fact that several OCs will be introduced throughout it that change a few things, and there's a lot of headcanon involving what Haven City used to be like, and the origins of Spargus and the House of Mar. Without further ado, I shall let you get to the first chapter of Captivity.
Disclaimer: The Jak and Daxter games, along with any characters involved in them, do NOT belong to me. They are copyrighted to Naughty Dog. Tara is my own character, and her existence belongs to me.
The sounds of a struggle woke Jak from a dead sleep, a girl's voice yelling and screeching before the door to his cell was opened and a pair of KG threw a small, too-thin figure inside. The door closed again, and Jak scrambled out of his bunk to see if the newcomer was okay.
He was greeted with a punch. He let go of a noise of pain, scooting back a bit as the figure shifted and sat up, glaring at him with bright teal eyes.
"Don' touch me." Jak gave the owner of the eyes a confused look. "Eh? Stop lookin' like I kicked yer crocadog, scrawny." The figure stood, showing herself to be female...though she couldn't be much older than him by the state of her curves: barely there. She was also scrawnier than him, an observation that had him giving her an annoyed look. "Wha's tha' look for? Yer a scrawny ass. An' why haven' ya said a word? Mos' people at leas' protes' bein' called shit like tha'." Jak looked sheepish and indicated his throat, then shook his head. Hopefully the message got across...usually Samos or Keira or Daxter explained things to new people about his lack of speech.
She seemed to get it, looking embarrassed. "Oh. Uh...sorry. So...I'm Tara. Go' a way fer me t' know wha' t' call ya? Or am I jus' callin' ya 'Silent'?" Jak shrugged, unsure for the moment whether to try or not. "Alrigh'...Silent it is." Tara eyed the bunks, then looked back to Jak. "Which'un ya sleepin' on?" Jak pointed to the bottom; the experiments the scientists had been doing on him, though small, left him just tired enough to not want to even try crawling onto the top bunk.
Tara just nodded and scampered onto the top bunk, all skinny limbs and pale skin and dark blue hair and tattered brown clothes.
The sound of the cell door opening woke Jak up again, two weeks later. Again, he saw Tara thrown in, and the door closed behind her. He practically dragged himself to her, limbs protesting thanks to their attempts to pump him full of dark eco that last week, and he shook her lightly. She looked up at him, shivering in pain and looking a bit...reddish. The red faded, though, and quickly.
"They started experimentin' on me too." Jak helped her sit up as best he could, wrapping his arms around her as much in an effort to keep upright himself as to provide comfort. "Wha' do ya ge'? I go' red. Is like bein' on fire. I been on fire once." Her words got sleepier. "Go' too close t' th' fire I was sleepin' nex' t' one ni-" Her words drifted off as she fell into slumber, still shivering a bit.
A year was a long time. Especially when the days blurred together and you had nothing much to do. Especially when a lot of that time was spent getting doused in eco. Far more eco than any human's body was designed to absorb.
Jak and Tara had given up on a lot of what could be considered 'civilized' at that point. Propriety was given up on, for certain, since neither had the strength after the experiments to crawl to the top bunk, and sleeping on the floor was a hazard that ended in stiff muscles and sore limbs. Neither was sure if they'd remember how to use utensils to eat with after getting nothing but gruel in a bowl. Haven City did not treat its prisoners kindly.
Tara's already short temper shortened even further as time went on. No KG wanted to go near her alone, for fear she'd snap at them. Especially after the incident that had taken seven KG to get her back in the cell she shared with Jak. None of them had walked away uninjured, and one had at least a broken arm from it. She often told Jak that she hoped it healed wrong.
She'd even get irate at Jak, though it was never for his silence. She'd gotten as used to it as Keira, or Samos, or Daxter. She'd told him one night (he thought it had been night, he stopped trying too hard to discern the time after a couple of months) that she trusted his silence. That it was more honest than all the scheming that went on around them. She found comfort in it after listening to Praxis' scientists prattle on and on around her, from the safety of their eco-shields.
And now that silence was gone.
Jak didn't know what they'd done, but suddenly, he could talk. He could make more than the non-word noises he'd been able to make before.
He stumbled as he was pushed back into the cell where an exhausted Tara sat waiting for him on the bunk. His blue eyes met her teal, and he said the first thing that came to mind, in a halting, quiet voice.
"I'm sorry." And then he passed out.
When he came to, he was on the bunk, and Tara was sitting next to him, a bowl in her hands. "Silent...here." She offered the bowl to him as he groaned and sat up. "Ya need t' eat somethin'. It actually tastes halfway decent today." The attempt at humor was accompanied by a wry half-smile, and expression he saw on her less and less.
"Wh-" She shook her head.
"No. Eat firs'. Then we'll talk." He nodded and took the bowl, starting to eat at it quietly. While he did so, he watched Tara. She glared at the door, towards the KG beyond it, guarding it. It wasn't the first time, and it wouldn't be the last; she did it every time, after either of them had been dragged back from experimentation. It made him notice something, though.
Her eyes were the only thing about her that was unchanged. Her skin had a red undertone to it, and her hair was more purple than blue. But her eyes were still that teal color they'd been when she was first tossed into their cell. And those eyes met his again when he finished eating.
"So...wha' d' I call ya, now tha' yer no' silent?"
"Jak." She smiled. A weary, tight expression, but a smile nonetheless as she moved to lean against him.
"Tha's a nice name."
"Thanks," was the last thing he said that day, settling into familiar, yet changed silence with his cellmate.